ENUMERATORS TRAINED ON HUMAN RIGHTS4LAND SURVEY
With funding from UN-FAO and technical support from TMG, Land for Life has in three days trained twelve 12 enumerators—two from each of the selected enumerated districts in Sierra Leone in Bo District, Southern Region.
The training was planned to help enumerators better grasp Sierra Leone’s land governance and human rights settings, as well as how to utilize the Kobocollect tool, the general ethics of data gathering, and the community entry strategy. The activity was designed, combining practical exercises with field visits to assess the tool’s usefulness as well as the efficiency and competence of the enumerators in administering an online questionnaire. To test the accuracy of the tool, a dry run was administered in Dambala, Selenga Chiefdom in Bo District, which is a non-enumerated chiefdom. The enumerators were paired to test the tool. At the end of the exercise, feedback was provided to help ensure that the process was well undertaken in each of the selected districts.
The data collection intends to supplement the country-wide research of Sierra Leone’s land governance system. The goal is to collect data that accurately represents the country’s economic, political, and cultural background. Whilst the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone will be collecting data at the national level, locally, Land for Life will collect similar data in 18 chiefdoms across six districts. The districts are: Bo, Port Loko, Pujehun, Tonkolili, Koinadugu, and Kono. Each of these districts was chosen in light of the present land governance challenges that people face. These challenges include but are not limited to agro-investment, multi-national mining operations, deforestation and timber logging, and disputes between crop producers and livestock herders.
At the end of the training, plans were set for a district stakeholder and media engagements. These engagements are meant to bring to the doors of key stakeholders the purpose of the data collection and the required support that they should give to the enumerators.